Bandwidth increase coming this autumn to Xbox Live

There's nothing better for having your sexuality, ethnicity, football team and mother insulted than a quick game on Xbox Live. But it's not much fun if the insults are crackly and hard to hear, right? Don't panic - the sound quality of Xbox Live communications is going upwhen the new 360 dashboard update hitsthis autumn, which means you can be insulted by eight-year-olds in greater clarity than ever before. Yay!

Above: Oh, that was you talking! I'm sorry, I thought you'd put your headset down next to a tramp

Xbox Live Studios boss Jerry Johnsonexplains: "The codec we used when we first launched was a low bit rate codec and we stuck with that. We launched and we said we required broadband. We required a 64k connection, which not many people think of as broadband any longer. But that was the minimum requirement to run the service at the time.

"It's time for us to move on. Especially if we want to think about broadening - a crackly headset on the top of your head – not what people think of when they talk about popular entertainment."

No, it isn't. But then neither is voluntarily subjecting yourself to a couple of hours of verbal abuse every now and then, yet we've done that for some eight years now. Still, onwards and upwards, eh?